The endangered long-beaked echidna is found only in the tropical forests of Papua New Guinea.

The echidna, photographed above with the Woodland Park Zoo's Lisa Dabek, is part of an ancient group of mammals that include the duck-billed platypus and has changed little in the last 100 million years.

This species is distinguished from its relative, the short-beaked echidna, by a beak that accounts for nearly two-thirds of the length of its head. Instead of teeth, echidnas have spiky tongues.

The species are often hunted or pushed out of their habitat by logging and mining operations--land uses prohibited in the newly designated YUS Conservation Area.